All posts tagged: Defining

Research Shows Kids Whose Parents Have 4 Defining Personality Traits Do Better Than Everyone Else In Life

Research Shows Kids Whose Parents Have 4 Defining Personality Traits Do Better Than Everyone Else In Life

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Big Five personality traits model has been around since at least 1929, although the specific details have evolved over time. Today, personality researchers who rely on the model say that the way we each think, behave, and feel what we feel falls somewhere along the spectrums of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These traits affect how we show up in all aspects of our lives, and researchers recently found that when parents have four traits in particular, their children tend to do particularly well in life compared to those whose parents lack the same traits. Some of these traits are fairly fixed, but if you really want to put in the work for the benefit of your kids, some amount of change is possible. Research shows that kids whose parents have these defining personality traits tend to do better than everyone else in life 1. Openness without neuroticism iofoto via Canva Being open doesn’t just mean accepting new perspectives or trying new things. It also refers to someone’s imagination and creativity. …

6 Defining Traits Of Women Whose Exes Become Their Very Best Friends

6 Defining Traits Of Women Whose Exes Become Their Very Best Friends

Published by Jenni Sidey

When people go through a breakup, their first instinct is to never want to speak to their ex again. But for some women, their exes become their very best friend, and it’s usually because they have traits that make this transition easy. Women like this often lead with empathy, and cherish the new platonic relationship they have with their ex. They’ve moved past the hurt and see their ex as someone they actually enjoy having around. When women become best friends with their exes, it’s because they have these defining traits 1. They’re capable of self-reflection TrueCreatives via Canva When people reflect on a breakup, they often realize they could have acted differently. Some don’t want to admit their mistakes and struggle to accept that their partner wasn’t the only issue in the relationship. They did things wrong too, but they won’t do the work to face that reality head-on. But women who become friends with their exes are very capable of pushing through those uncomfortable feelings and doing a bit of self-reflection. They can …

‘She’s the voice of a really particular moment’: how Phoebe Bridgers became her generation’s defining songwriter | Phoebe Bridgers

‘She’s the voice of a really particular moment’: how Phoebe Bridgers became her generation’s defining songwriter | Phoebe Bridgers

Published by Sam Flores

This week, indie star Phoebe Bridgers releases her long-awaited third album, six years since her pandemic-era breakthrough. Alongside a slew of glittering reviews for Lost Weekend, including five stars from the Guardian, with it comes her first solo charting single in the UK – although the Californian musician’s influence runs far deeper than reviews or record sales could measure. Just how did a RuneScape-referencing, Halloween-costumed Berklee drop-out become the most influential songwriter of the 2020s? Bridgers’ idiosyncratic writing has shaped the sound of the decade. Her second album Punisher, released in June 2020 (and recorded many months before), spookily anticipated that strange, lonely year: in her eerie double-tracked vocals (a nod to Bridgers’ musical hero, Elliott Smith), Bridgers sang of empty shopping malls and conspiracy theories over lush, unsettling music made from watery electric guitar, Mellotron, strings, screams and birdsong. Today, Bridgers’ distinctive mix of dry wit and pathos is traceable in the lyrics of pop’s new chart toppers, such as Olivia Rodrigo and Gracie Abrams, while heavyweights across generations and genres, including Paul McCartney, …

Lily Allen’s West End Girl was the defining album of 2025. Why isn’t it on the Mercury Prize shortlist?

Lily Allen’s West End Girl was the defining album of 2025. Why isn’t it on the Mercury Prize shortlist?

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the inside track from Roisin O’Connor with our free weekly music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This When you think of the album that everyone was talking about last year, only one springs to mind: Lily Allen’s eviscerating marriage post-mortem West End Girl. It’s the album that lit up WhatsApp groups around the country, made jaws drop with the sheer bluntness of it all, and may just have inspired more than one woman to ditch their husband. So why, I want to know, is it not on this year’s Mercury Prize shortlist? The snubbing of the British pop artist’s career-best work – a blistering, jaw-dropping, skin-pinchingly brutal narrative of a marriage in freefall – is one of the industry’s most spectacular fumbles in some time. Especially when it comes to women in music, the UK has a depressing reputation for failing to champion its own artists until they’re a success elsewhere. But Allen being left out is especially surprising, given …

Swedish Police Veteran Warns Islamization Is Replacing Gang Violence As Country’s Defining Threat

Swedish Police Veteran Warns Islamization Is Replacing Gang Violence As Country’s Defining Threat

Published by Jenni Sidey

Via Remix News, A veteran Swedish police officer says tougher criminal laws have sharply improved security in Uppsala, but warns that Islamization and parallel social structures now pose a deeper long-term threat. Maria Rosander, a police officer of 17 years and Sweden Democrat group leader in Uppsala, told Samnytt that conditions for officers had changed dramatically since shootings and explosions reached crisis levels. “From a police point of view, it’s like night and day,” she said. Rosander credited tougher sentences, expanded surveillance, better cooperation between police regions, and greater use of covert measures. Suspected young gang recruits can now be intercepted before carrying out attacks, she said. The improvement showed that political decisions could reverse criminal decline, but it still has a long way to go. “We have come to the conclusion that it is not profitable to be a criminal,” Rosander said. However, the police chief suggested that while legislation to tackle gang violence was starting to produce the desired effect, religious segregation and increased Islamization across Swedish society remain a huge problem. “Islamization is a …

The Defining Shorts of Summer 2026, According to GQ Staffers

The Defining Shorts of Summer 2026, According to GQ Staffers

Published by Jenni Sidey

Around this time every year, the GQ Recommends team convenes in our clandestine subterranean lair (it’s like the Batcave, but with better lighting) to vote on one crucial matter: the official shorts of the summer. Prior summits have anointed Patagonia’s legendary Baggies and these ultra-preppy pleated joints from Lands’ End. The debate is fierce. Words are said; friendships are renounced; thighs are exposed. But without fail, the process yields promising new contenders for the crown, smoky flares beamed to desktops around the world with a single message: The shorts have been shortlisted. Because accuracy is the sole non-negotiable here, we also know when it doesn’t feel right to crown one unmarred victor. And in 2026, shorts have taken a turn towards all kinds of extremes—hems have simultaneously blown past the knee, nearly kissing the ankles, and sneakily crept upwards, until they’re almost boxer shorts. The very notion of a scientifically correct inseam length has been all but obliterated. This is nothing to panic about. It’s actually a victory for guys like you and I the …

How Donny Hathaway turned this soft rock cover into America’s defining song

How Donny Hathaway turned this soft rock cover into America’s defining song

Published by Sam Flores

Donny Hathaway had already been expounding on the splendors and indignities of American life by the time he got to the Troubadour in West Hollywood in the last week of August 1971. A classically trained pianist with a declamatory voice shaped by his years in the church, Hathaway closed Side 1 of his 1970 debut with an original called “Tryin’ Times” — “Maybe folks wouldn’t have to suffer,” he sang, “if there was more love for your brother” — and finished the LP with a stately rendition of Nina Simone’s “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” Months after the album was released, he dropped a joy bomb of a holiday single, “This Christmas,” that unapologetically made space for a Black experience in the yuletide-industrial complex. Donny Hathaway performs at Mister Kelly’s in Chicago in 1971. (Val Mazzenga / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service via Getty Images) Yet Hathaway captured something indelibly American during his week of shows at the Troubadour, which were recorded (along with a later gig at New York’s Bitter End) for …

10 Designers Share the Trends Defining Dwellings of Tomorrow

10 Designers Share the Trends Defining Dwellings of Tomorrow

Published by skeptic

“People are more willing to get their hands dirty. [They’re] becoming aware of the fact that, as a homeowner, you’re part of the garden team. A great garden is usually defined by the person watching it—[which is usually] the person who lives there. Water features [are] coming up a lot. There was a stigma because of water use, but if you do them right, they really don’t increase water use much. The idea of sound in the garden should be considered—the revival of the wind chime or the sound that certain plants make, [whether] that’s bamboo, dried leaves, or water features.” —Carlos Campos Morera, landscape designer and cofounder of AD100 firm Geoponika, Los Angeles “We want smart technology to be more invisible. It’s not cool to see screens. Of course we have to deal with ecological elements, like how to regulate heat and to have smart houses. [We] want to feel it but not see it. We [also] want to come back to natural materials and textures. It’s more about working with artisans. [There’s a] …

Apple’s AI Overhaul Signals a Defining Shift for the Smartphone

Apple’s AI Overhaul Signals a Defining Shift for the Smartphone

Published by skeptic

I won’t play the bitter “Android did it first” game. But I will say that after seeing the slew of AI features Apple unveiled at WWDC on Monday, I’m glad iOS 27 is getting some supercharged capabilities that are on par with what Android has offered for years.  Updates to Apple Intelligence and Siri — partly powered by Google’s Gemini models — push smartphones deeper into the AI-first era, where smart assistants can start to fulfill their long-promised potential.  Siri AI, which finally arrives two years after Apple first announced a Siri revamp, can now handle more complex and multi-step tasks. The company says its improved assistant can understand the context of what’s on your screen, pull up relevant information across various apps and carry out a more natural back-and-forth conversation. It’s designed to feel seamless, practical and actually helpful. No more vague “I found this on the web” replies (hopefully).  Siri AI will be able to find the exact photos someone texts you about, or dig up a flight confirmation number from your email …

Obama’s former speechwriter Ben Rhodes examines the US through its 15 most defining speeches | Books

Obama’s former speechwriter Ben Rhodes examines the US through its 15 most defining speeches | Books

Published by Sam Flores

Donald Trump “has proven Jeremiah Wright correct about a lot of things”, said Ben Rhodes, a former speechwriter and deputy national security adviser to Barack Obama and still a close aide to the ex-president. “If you look at the things that Jeremiah Wright was kind of canceled for, it was saying America was a nation founded on racism. Well, it’s a fairly common view these days. 9/11 was the chickens coming home to roost? I make versions of that argument every time I write for the New York Times: that American foreign policy has blowback.” Rhodes was discussing Wright because the Chicago pastor was at the center of a fraught episode in Obama’s rise to power, which forms a key chapter in his new book, All We Say – The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches. During the 2008 Democratic primary, footage emerged of Wright featuring lines like “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human” and calling Obama, to whom he ministered, “a Black man living in a …